Disclaimer 1: I.P. Freely is a pseudonym. It’s not an unfortunate name foisted upon a hapless child of clueless parents, though we like to think that somewhere in the world there is an actual I.P. Freely who has to leave phone messages and be paged in busy airports.

I.P. Freely is the handle that we (a very secretive group within the company that shall remain wonderfully anonymous) will use from time to time when posting on the CafePress Blog. For the purposes of this blog, I.P. stands for Intellectual Property.

Why – you might fairly wonder – did we pick I.P. Freely as our blog handle? The truth is simple: we had no choice. It was chosen for us, and we strongly suspect it was chosen as revenge. Revenge for always saying “no” (i.e. keeping folks in line). It’s a thankless job, ours; but in our department we have a natural tendency to be risk adverse, and avoiding risk is thanks enough. Unfortunately, this does mean that we often have to tell people “no,” and are then (rather unfairly) deemed the “doom and gloom” of what some think to be “brilliant” or “inspired” or otherwise “irreplaceable” ideas.

Naturally, when buzzcowboy approached us about contributing to the company blog we said “no.” We’re accustomed to giving this answer, and we’re accustomed to people taking it and going on their merry way to think of a new idea. However, this time we vastly underestimated the power and persuasion of buzzcowboy. She developed and executed a half-baked but ultimately effective strategy: she flattered, she wheedled, she was tenacious, she plied us with haiku until we could stand no more, and in the end she was victorious (although we will not concede defeat. On the contrary, we have merely decided that we agreed with her terms of our own free will and accord).

And so was born I.P. Freely, who will work late hours and weekends to make the time to contribute to the public discourse on various matters of I.P. and beyond, as we have now come to believe that it is our right and our duty to have a voice on this thing called a blog. We are even feeling a sense of – dare we say – excitement.

Disclaimer 2: As previously mentioned in Disclaimer 1, “I.P.” stands for Intellectual Property (and nothing else!) in this context. Please note that I.P. Freely reserves the right to I.P. in a risk adverse manner.  Better said: at times, I.P. Not-So-Freely.